ADP Employment Number Comes in Positively; Markets Shift Focus to Non Farm Payrolls on Friday

The release of the ADP private employment report showed that the U.S. economy added 217,000 during the month of February. Additionally, the report for January was revised upward, to 189,000 from the 187,000 printing that was seen previously. This will likely lead the speculation in the markets that the non farm payrolls number on Friday will show a similar surprise and lead markets higher. As has been the case recently, the majority of the gains came from small and mid sized companies, which accounted for 204,000 payrolls total jobs combined. Positives were seen in the manufacturing sector which has added an average of 25,000 jobs for the past three months. But most of the gains were made in the services industry, which many analysts were expecting, given the strong data that has been seen in recent ISM services data and other similar services reports. Services make up more than 80% of the total jobs in the U.S. economy, according the ADP. Markets will now shift their focus back to the bigger question, which is whether or not the ADP number will be an accurate predictor of the non farm payrolls report at the end of this week. The number from last came in poorly, showing an addition of only 36,000 new jobs. 50,000 of those jobs came from the private sector. The particularly harsh weather that was seen in the U.S. this winter has led to poor predictions for the payrolls number but this ADP number could shift sentiment. Markets will be looking to the report to gauge the level of predictability that the ADP number is capable of producing. Stay tuned for the Friday number. Read the full story at Spread Betting, where you can also find free guides to technical analysis, financial news, and reviews of spread betting companies such as ig index.